John Turturro

John Michael Turturro (Italian pronunciation: [turˈturro]) (born February 28, 1957) is an American-Italian actor, writer and director known for his roles in the films Do the Right Thing (1989), Miller's Crossing (1990), Barton Fink (1991), Quiz Show (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and the first three films in the Transformers film series (2007–2011). He has appeared in over sixty films, and has worked frequently with the Coen brothers, Adam Sandler and Spike Lee.

An Emmy Award winner, Turturro has also been nominated for three Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Golden Globe Award.

Early life

Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Katherine, an amateur jazz singer who worked in a Navy yard during World War II, and Nicholas Turturro, a carpenter and construction worker who fought as a Navy sailor on D-Day. Turturro's mother was Sicilian (from Aragona near Agrigento) and his father immigrated from Giovinazzo, Bari, Italy at the age of six. Turturro was raised a Roman Catholic and moved to the Rosedale section of Queens, New York with his family when he was six. He majored in Theatre Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and completed his MFA at the Yale School of Drama.